News
Selecting the Wrong Drywall Could Introduce Mercury into the Environment
Make a big impact without paying more or sacrificing performance by ensuring your specification provides an incentive for drywall with: 1. The highest percentage of natural gypsum possible. 2. The lowest amount of pre-consumer recycled content. 3. A preference for post-consumer recycled content. When using healthier drywall products, encourage your contractor to separate waste for recycling. Watch this short video on recycling drywall.
Read MoreBrief: Post-Consumer Flexible Polyurethane Foam Scrap Used In Building Products
Carpet cushion (that soft layer installed between a sub-floor and a carpet) is made from flexible polyurethane foam (FPF). Generally that foam is recycled scrap from the manufacture of furniture, such as couch cushions, or old carpet cushion itself. Healthy Building Network’s research into current recycling practices for FPF indicates that most post-consumer foam is contaminated with highly toxic flame retardants.
Read MoreA Primer on Interior Paint
Interior paints can cover enormous amounts of a building’s surface area in a building. Walls and ceilings, as well as moldings and casings can all be painted surfaces. Selecting a palette of paint products that have the fewest hazards possible for a given project can therefore have a magnified impact on occupants.
Read MoreHBCD-free Styrofoam™ Insulation Coming to USA -- by Jim Vallette
Good news in the insulation world. By 2018, extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation will be available in North America without the extremely toxic flame retardant, hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD).
Read MoreOn Tire Wastes in Playgrounds -- by Jim Vallette
"The tire industry has thrived in a regulatory void." HBN's Jim Vallette explains how tire waste came to America's playgrounds.
Read MoreFilled with Uncertainty: Toxic Dirt in Building & Construction -- by Jim Vallette
What's the latest dirt? Jim Vallette finds a lot to uncover in construction fill and playground mulch.
Read MoreHomeFree -- by Gina Ciganik
Welcome to HomeFree, the Healthy Building Network’s new initiative that supports affordable housing leaders who are improving human health through the use of healthy, high-performing building materials.
Read MoreHow Common Product Profiles Help Inform Product Decisions
On the Products section of HomeFree -- in addition to individual products -- visitors will now see Common Product Profiles (CPs for short). These CPs inform material selection in construction projects by allowing users to model the potential human health impacts of their material choices prior to installation.
Read MoreCarpet Padding and Flame Retardants
Building occupants, particularly crawling children, can be exposed to flame retardants released from carpet pad. This blog, and accompanying white paper, delve deeper into this issue.
Read MoreNew Research Shows Formaldehyde No Longer Used in Residential Fiberglass Insulation -- by Jim Vallette
New research shows the light density residential fiberglass insulation industry in the U.S. and Canada has finally eliminated the use of formaldehyde-based binders in its manufacturing. Formaldehyde is a human toxicant with a long history of use in residential insulation, but it—like 62,000 other chemicals— was grandfathered in and is unregulated by the federal government under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.
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